Thursday, March 6, 2014

What’s going on?  Heaps darl! – for everyone but me, or so it seems.  I am rendered almost useless by a lingering shoulder injury, I can handle that but the fact it has prevented my making new work in the past year is eating me up.  I got a commission of porcelain replica ammonite fossils sorted easily but it wasn’t anyway challenging.

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Teaching newcomers to throw on Saturday mornings is such fun, (I am very careful with my shoulder) I have a wheel throwing class at CIT and by week two they were producing what I call ‘round stuff’.  They’re whooshing past wedging and centering challenges, rapidly into making actual pots and are so proud of them.  Giving up a Saturday morning for clay shows their dedication.  Week two - round things! I can’t say I was that on target at the beginning of my own clay career.  I credit Greg Daly and Janet DeBoos at ANU for teaching me the common errors we make when throwing and how to avoid them. I’m told my way of teaching is very technical. I observe what they are doing and guide around whatever hiccup is preventing their success.  Next week we will cover trimming and maybe a little joining.  I’d love to see them take off with making pots to join together.  CIT is a brilliant venue for classes in clay.  All the while we work alongside Warwick Palmateer as artist in residence in the CIT studio making very large pots for a future exhibition.  It is truly inspiring. 

My Monday evening class at Perth Studio Potters are a lovely group and voracious for information.  I’ve been squeezing in some mini tutorials on some surface treatments and print techniques.  It is much easier to do with a small class.  I’m kicking myself to be missing Bernard Kerr’s upcoming Morphology workshop at PSP Cottesloe on 29th & 30th March which I’m sure will be hugely rewarding for the lucky participants.  



Tonight I go to a CAAWA (Ceramic Arts Association of WA) study group talk given by CJ Jilek.  I’ve blogged about CJ, she is just lovely and her imagination and capability makes me want to never stop trying stuff out.  I can’t wait for her talk, then tomorrow night there’s a lecture by Award Winning Danish ceramist Helle Lund Hansen at the absolutely wonderful school The Clay House in North Fremantle (where CJ Jilek and Tony Wise are currently Artists in Residence. 

CAAWA's POTober 2014 is well and truly on the cards and has a very cool lineup.  I still haven't caught up enough to write up the one two years ago.  This is a teaser, I’ll tell you more next time.


But what got me back blogging and blithering was looking at Andrea Vinkovic's blog today.  WOW! My way of doing clay work is not remotely technical compared with the precision planning and execution of a large work by Andrea.  Her current work is remarkable in the mathematics and precision needed to create a Geodesic Dome in clay.  Subscribe to her blog to follow this amazing journey, she positively thrives on such a challenge and documents it in detail on http://andrea-ceramics.blogspot.com.au.  I adore all the processes involved in clay, models, moulds, slips, glazes, firing etc okay not the pug milling so much – but her work is all of that  - on steroids.

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3 comments:

  1. Hi Elaine,
    Sorry this comment is months late... for some strange reason your blog has not been updating on the links on my blog, it has been stubbornly showing one that you posted about a year ago.... the Part 2 of your "kilns moving them, the EPIC" post.., such are the marvels of the internet!! Sorry that your shoulder injury was so troubling to you. I do hope that there has been a good improvement since you did this post. Wonderful that you have been able to help beginners learn to throw. I imagine that teaching that sort of thing to a class must be an art in itself! Interesting that you have been helped along your path by Greg Daly and Janet DeBoos, I have found their glaze books really helpful, and return from time to time to 3 of the DeBoos glazes that are in her first book.
    Anyway, hope all is going well for you. Kind Thoughts, P

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  2. P.S. I had difficulty leaving a comment. I had to first use the "Preview" button before it would give me the verification word/numbers. If I went straight to "Publish" I suspect my comment just vanished somewhere in Google land! Others may have been prevented from commenting by the same technical problem, which is sad as you have a really interesting blog. Not sure if there is a fix to it, but there may be a security setting that could be tweaked somewhere??

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